11 Directors Who Won Oscars For Completely The Wrong Movie

9. Damien Chazelle

Won For... La La Land

Should Have Won For... Whiplash

Before the witch-hunt kicks off, La La Land definitely deserved the Best Director win of the nominees in 2017 (just as it should have won Best Picture too), but if Whiplash could have won in its place, there should be no arguments.

La La Land is more an achievement in showy directing and choreography: it is beautiful and wonderful and the ending is affecting in the most disarming way. It messes you up, and that's testament to the strength of the story-telling. But Whiplash is incredible on a different level.

It can't rely on the grand staging or production design or musical numbers that its own success afforded Chazelle in his follow-up, and the fact that he squeezed so much tension out of drumming sequences and two person exchanges was stunning. And if La La Land's end was good, it was nothing compared to the way Whiplash ends.